Earlier in my blog i show a list of drummers that will be featured in my publication, my intentions at the minute are to have information about these drummers, including what role they had to pay in to creation and development of funk music, as well as personal information about their professional careers and finally a transcribed notation of grooves they created and played in legendary funk tracks.
This publication's audience is drummers influenced by funk drumming, drummers that may not know much about funk drumming, it will aim to inform as well as educate, giving an overview of what styles and techniques create a good funk drummer.
I plan to transcribe the general drum grooves for each drummer I have picked. In this case I have picked the funk drummers that have been in the most influential funk bands, from the birth of funk in the late 1950's to modern day.
this is a topic that I am already quite familiar with, as I have researched and written essays on the history of funk in previous music courses I have taken, so therefore this will limit the amount of research that will be needed, obviously there are still certain areas I will need to concentrate on, but at least i will not have to start from scratch
Main points of funk
- Groovy and Danceable
- Prominently lead by bass groove
- Focused largely on rhythm
- Very little harmonic movement
- Complicated rhythmic feel and groove
- Main emphasis on the back beat (the 2 and the 4 of a bar)
- Highly syncopated rhythms
History of Funk essay I previously wrote;
Michael Scott Styles assignment
Funk
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“Funk is a marriage between jazz, R&B, gospel or whatever you happen to be feeling at the time”
Pee Wee Ellis - (James Browns Band leader and saxophonist 1966-69)
Before the use of the word funk was most commonly used to describe a genre of music, it was (and still is) used as a word to describe some form of bad smell, it is said that it originated to describe the smell of tobacco smoke but generally refers to body odor or the smell of sexual intercourse. In musical terms the word funk was typically used by lower and middle class African-American musicians playing jazz, soul or blues music, when they wanted other band members to “get down” by telling them to “put some funk on it”. Then in the 1950’s and early 1960’s it was typically used in Soul music, until the term was eventually used in a context that meant music should be played more groovy and danceable.
Funk bands usually consist of electric bass, electric guitar, drums, lead vocals, backing vocals and a horn section which involves saxophones, trumpets and trombones. However all these instruments are not needed to create a successful funk band.
Similar to the genre Motown, funk music is based around a strong rhythmic bass line and was one of the first genres of music to have the bass as one of the the most prominent instruments. Some of the most influential funk bass players were George Porter Jr., William “Bootsy” Collins, Louis Johnson and finally the bass player for, Sly and the Family Stone, Larry Graham, who was credited with being the man who invented the slap bass technique. Two techniques that can be used by funk bass players to make the electric bass both a melodic and rhythmic instrument are the Slap bass technique, which is a term used to describe when the thumb is slapped against the lower notes and also the Popping technique, which is when the fingers of the same hand are used to pluck the higher notes, if used correctly the bass player can use these techniques to work with the bass drum of the drum kit to create a funky syncopated groove.
Guitarists in funk bands take a similar role as the bass player, they also have a very percussive style of playing, using muted notes and wah-wah effects peddles to create a rhythmic yet melodic sound, many early funk guitarists were influenced by rock guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and were inspired by his improvised solos.
A lot of the most influential and talented funk musicians have come from a jazz background, this is because funk is based around similar chord types to bebop jazz, however whereas bebop has very quick and relentless chord changes, funk is much more laid back in its chord changing complexity and usually has very little harmonic movement with most funk tunes only consisting of one or two riffs, but it makes up for this with its generally complicated rhythmic feel and groove.
Obviously, James Brown was one of the most important and influential musicians when it comes to talking about the creation of funk, he had one of the most distinctive and recognisable sounds in music history. In the mid to late 1960‘s James Brown created the classic funk sound when he changed the traditional soul music sound, where the main emphasis was on the back beat (beats two and four) and made it so the emphasis was now on beats one and three which is said to have derived from West African poly-rhythmic beats. Browns hits “Out of Sight” 1964, “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” 1965, “Cold Sweat” 1967, “I Got The Feelin”1968, “Say It Loud I’m Black And I’m Proud” 1968, “Give It Up Or Turn I Loose” 1969 and “Mother Popcorn” 1969, are said to be the tracks that formed the classic sound of the funk genre.
Not only did James Brown change the emphasis of the beat, he also used his vocals to create another percussive style aspect to his songs, he regularly grunted, shouted, talked or screamed in a way similar to that of chants that might be heard in African American Gospel church services, this did add more enthusiasm to each track.
In the late 60’s new bands started following in James Browns foot steps, releasing tracks with a similar funky style, The Meters were one of these bands, they were a New Orleans based band and rarely had mainstream success, however they are considered to be one of the major influences to funk music and other artists in this genre, their sound is defined by a combination of tight melodic grooves and highly syncopated rhythms, their songs “Cissy Strut”, “Sophisticated Cissy” and “Look-Ka Py Py” are considered funk classics.
As funk became more and more popular, different styles of funk started appearing, in the 1970s “P-Funk” was born. “P-Funk” was a developed style of “funk rock”, innovated by George Clinton and his bands Parliament and then Funkadelic, both bands were made up of virtually the same musicians as James Browns backing band, but both were focused around different instruments for example Parliament usually had strong horn based grooves and Funkadelic was structured more around funky guitar riffs. They were often referred to collectively as “Parliament-Funkadelic”, this lead to people describing George Clintons music as “P-Funk” which then later was used to describe the new funk genre which was influenced by both jazz and more psychedelic rock, Clinton says that the “P” in “P-funk” stands for “pure” and “.
This is now the time that funk really started to become more mainstream with many more bands appearing on the scene Earth, Wind & Fire, Sly and the Family Stone, Tower of Power, Mothers Finest, Kool & the gang just to name a few.
As time went on more people started adding funky elements to different genres to create completely new ones, Jazz fusion was one of the earliest being started by Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, after that, Funk rock (Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Funk metal (Living Colour), Funkcore (Adequate Seven), Punk-funk (Gang of Four), G-Funk or Gangsta-funk (Dr.Dre) and many more.'
